I-95 Project Off To A Good Start

CONSTRUCTION on the last Palm Beach County segment of Interstate 95`s missing link is off to a good start - two weeks early.

But motorists shouldn`t hold their breaths in anticipation of completion. That isn`t scheduled to happen until Dec. 31, 1987.

The $17.2 million project, which began last Wednesday on a 4.2-mile section of the uncompleted I-95 between Hood and Indiantown roads, is one of 10 segments now under construction.

Work on the eleventh and final segment of the 30-mile missing link, a 2.2- mile stretch of roadway in Martin County near Stuart, is scheduled to begin this weekend. The cost of that job, due to be completed by Feb. 20, 1987, is $8.3 million.

If construction work remains on schedule, motorists should be able by January of 1988 to travel the 383-mile length of I-95 from south of Miami through Broward, Palm Beach and Martin counties and up the coast to the Georgia line. Many people were beginning to wonder whether they would see this in their lifetimes.

The goal, said a Department of Transportation spokesperson, is to have work on all segments of the missing link finished no later than Dec. 31, 1987.

The saga of I-95 has been one of dawdling and unfilled promises. For many years, a secret covenant to protect Turnpike revenues stalled work. Then completion of the missing link bogged down because of an environmental fight over the path the road would take.

The long-suffering public only can hope that the excuses and the delays on I- 95 are past and that the early start on the Hood Road-Indiantown segment sets a pace that will continue.